


love doesn't come in boxes

by thistidalwave



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Jack Zimmermann is an Idiot, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 06:36:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2803022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thistidalwave/pseuds/thistidalwave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spending one-on-one time with Bitty when this awkward feelings thing keeps happening is not a good idea, Jack’s sure of that, but, well— the other option is not doing anything and watching Bitty get kicked off the team.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love doesn't come in boxes

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to my pain consultant, [Lily](http://archiveofourown.org/users/blamefincham), without whom I probably wouldn't have quite this many FEELINGS. And thanks to everyone I first forced to read Check, Please!, then forced to read this <3
> 
>  **Warning** for a panic attack.

The whistle blows and Jack takes off down the ice, following the pattern they’d laid out for this play despite Dex deliberately skating into his path. He’s in exactly the right spot to receive Bitty’s pass and knock it into the net easily, and he breathes a silent sigh of relief to himself. That’s the first time they’ve successfully mastered a play on the first try—at least, the first time this practice.

When he turns around, Bitty is already right there, beaming underneath his mask and skating Jack straight into the boards. He’s caught by surprise, though in retrospect, he probably should have been expecting it.

“Hell yeah!” Bitty says enthusiastically. “That was _sick_.” 

Jack can’t help but smile at him. “Yeah, yeah. Good one, Bittle.” He hits Bitty in the arm with a gloved hand, then feels awkward about it for absolutely no reason. They’ve been hugging for quite a while now, haven’t they? Like, too long. They should probably— 

“All right, boys, bring it back in!” Coach Murray yells.

—stop that. Jack doesn’t move, but Bitty flashes Jack another bright smile before letting go and skating back to the bench. Jack follows after him. 

This isn’t the first time he’s felt… weird around Bitty lately. In fact, it’s kind of becoming an all too regular affair. The other day he’d just been going to the kitchen to get a pop, and of course, Bitty was in there baking like normal, and dancing around to what Jack is now well aware is Beyoncé like normal, and instead of walking by him like _normal_ , Jack stood in the doorway for a good fifteen seconds watching him. 

“You guys nailed that play,” Holster says when Jack stops beside him. “You and Bitty play really well together.” 

Jack shrugs, pulling off his gloves. He wishes people wouldn’t draw attention to him and Bitty. “It worked fine in practice, but Yale’s d-men are bigger than Nursey. Who knows what’ll happen if one of them starts skating at Bittle.” 

Well, that came out a lot harsher than it had sounded in his head. He’d figured he was talking quietly enough that Bitty wouldn’t hear, but judging from the twin glares Holster and Ransom give him and the slight slump of Bitty’s shoulders, he was wrong. Fuck. 

-

Jack is sitting in his room mindlessly rewatching one of his favourite World War II documentaries instead of doing something productive when Shitty walks in—pantsless, of course—and gives him a look. Jack pauses the documentary. “What?” 

“Was just wondering what crawled up your ass and died at practice today?” 

Jack sighs. “Nothing.” 

“No, see, that.” Shitty waves an accusatory finger at him. “That’s _exactly_ the fucking thing.”

“What thing?” Jack asks, genuinely confused.

“The thing you do,” Shitty says. Jack stares at him. “You know—” He crosses his arms and sighs dramatically, blowing his bangs out of his face, then pitches his voice up and puts on an over-the-top Canadian accent. “‘ —ooh, I’m _Jack Zimmermann_ , I’m totally aloof and above everyone, eh? No one can _possibly_ understand what I’m going through!’” He drops his arms. “That thing.”

“I don’t sound like that,” Jack says. 

“Well, that’s what I’m hearing,” Shitty says. “And your problems are no excuse to be a douchenugget to Bitty, dude.”

“I didn’t mean for him to hear.” 

“Weak, bro. You know what I didn’t mean to hear?” 

“Uh…” Jack says, slightly afraid to ask. 

“I was going to ask Murray and Hall about practice next Friday because I’m gonna have to miss for that class thing, except they already had Bitty in the office, and I figured no big deal, right? I’d just wait.”

“Um.”

“Shut up. Bottom line is, they told him if he doesn’t learn to take a hit they’re gonna have to take him off the roster.” 

Jack frowns. “When was this?” 

“Yesterday. I wasn’t gonna say anything, but then you had to go and be a dickwad.” 

“They can’t take him off the roster,” Jack says, almost to himself. 

“Pretty sure they can, bro.” 

Obviously they can, but Jack doesn’t want them to. He’s actually surprising himself with how vehemently he doesn’t want that. These are possibly untapped depths of passion.

“You’re gonna make me apologize, aren’t you,” Jack realizes.

Shitty huffs. “No. I mean, yeah, but that’s not my point. You helped him with the checking thing last year. Do it again, shit-for-brains.” 

It’s a very good point, but Jack’s initial reaction is _no, I can’t do that_. Spending one-on-one time with Bitty when this awkward feelings thing keeps happening is not a good idea, he’s sure of that, but, well— the other option is not doing anything and watching Bitty get kicked off the team. He can suffer through a bit of awkwardness for Bitty’s sake. And by “Bitty’s sake”, he definitely means the sake of the team. Because, like, Bitty is important for morale or whatever. It’s not that Jack likes Bitty more than anyone else on the team, because he doesn’t. This is his duty as captain.

“I guess I can do that,” Jack says.

“Yeah, you can,” Shitty agrees. “And I’d better hear about that apology, too.” 

-

Jack finds Bitty, as usual, baking a pie in the kitchen. (This is the ninth one this month, which seems completely insane to Jack. Not that he’s counting how many pies Bitty makes.) Bitty looks up when Jack walks in, then quickly looks back down at whatever he’s doing to his pie crust. 

“Hey,” Jack says.

“Hey, Jack.” He’s still not looking up. Jack wishes he would, as if saying this to Bitty’s actual face would be easier. It so wouldn’t.

“I wanted to apologize for what I said at practice,” Jack says, just like he’s been practicing it in his head. “It was uncalled for, and I’m sorry.” 

Bitty shrugs. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not,” Jack says firmly. 

Bitty looks up at him for a moment, then shrugs again. “Okay. Apology accepted.”

Jack stands awkwardly, takes a couple steps backward in the direction of the door, then stops. Bitty looks like he’s expecting Jack to go away, totally immersed in his baking, and Jack considers tapping out. He pictures Shitty’s wrath, though, and clears his throat. “Um, I also wanted to offer to help?”

Bitty frowns. “With the pie? That’s nice of you, but I don’t think—”

“No, not with the pie, with the checking.” Bitty just looks at him, and Jack fidgets. “I mean, I figured it helped a bit before, right? We can try again?” 

“You don’t have to do that.”

Jack shakes his head. “Yeah, I do. I’m your captain. Kind of in the job description.” He pauses awkwardly, then adds, “And I want to help.” 

Bitty’s still frowning. “I’m not a frog anymore, I shouldn’t need one-on-one sessions for something this basic.” 

“Well, obviously you do. When I can see that you’ve got it, you’re off the hook, but until then, 4 AM checking clinics. You hear me?” He winces inwardly, afraid he went too far again, but Bitty isn’t frowning anymore. He’s got a determined set to his jaw instead.

“I hear you,” Bitty says. 

“Good,” Jack says. He claps Bitty on the shoulder and makes to leave. “Text me when the pie’s done, eh?” 

-

It’s absurdly early. Jack is used to early mornings, but it never quite stops being strange that it’s still dark outside. Even Bitty isn’t quite the ball of energy he usually is—he’s not constantly yawning or anything, but his eyes are sleepy and his hair is sticking up on one side before he shoves his helmet over it. Jack can’t help but think it’s cute.

Jack ties and reties his skates while he waits for Bitty to gear up, and they hit the ice together. 

“Okay, against the boards,” Jack starts to say, but when he turns around, Bitty is already there, looking terrified but determined. 

“What, do you think I forgot how this goes? I had a mild concussion, not severe brain damage,” Bitty says. Jack ignores the tremor in his voice and nods.

“All right then, short stuff,” Jack says. “Ready?” 

“No, but isn’t that why we’re here?”

“Fair enough.” Jack lines up and skates practically as slow as possible into Bitty, just brushing by him. Bitty doesn’t move, but when Jack circles around, he can see that Bitty’s got his eyes shut. “Eyes open,” he says, skating up again, a little faster this time. He jostles Bitty more this time, but Bitty still doesn’t drop.

“Square up,” Jack reminds him. He’s starting to feel a bit more optimistic about this. He goes in at about half normal speed and when he hits Bitty, he hears him make his tell-tale gasping noise and stops just in time to catch Bitty mid-faint. So much for the optimism. “ _Bitty_.” He shakes him gently. “Wake up, man.” He stares at Bitty’s face, looking for signs of life. “Come on.” 

Bitty’s still not moving. He’s dead weight in Jack’s arms, but fortunately not very much of it. Jack doesn’t understand how he can eat all the things he bakes and still weigh about as much as Jack’s hockey bag. 

Jack pictures kissing Bitty awake and balks from the thought. That’s definitely _not_ a good idea. What the fuck, brain. 

Bitty’s eyes flutter open just then, and Jack thanks his lucky stars. “Uh, Jack?” Bitty mumbles. “Why am I not on the floor? Have I learned to faint standing up? ‘Cause that would be cool.”

“I got your back,” Jack says. “You good?” He doesn’t let go even as Bitty gets his feet back under him, afraid he might lose his balance.

“I think so,” Bitty says. His cheeks are flushed a brighter pink than Jack thinks should be possible. “Thanks.”

“Of course,” Jack says, finally dropping his hands from Bitty’s arms. “Again?” 

They keep at it for another fifteen minutes or so, but Jack can’t stop thinking about that stupid thought he’d had about kissing Bitty, and eventually he can’t take it anymore.

“Hey, I think we can be done for now,” Jack says.

Bitty frowns. “What?” 

“I just, uh, remembered I didn’t do this homework thing that’s due today,” Jack lies. “So I need to, um… do that.”

“Oh,” Bitty says. He looks confused and a bit skeptical, and Jack feels like an idiot. 

“Sorry,” Jack says. 

-

It’s a few days before they have checking practice again, and by that time Jack has convinced himself that the kissing thing was just his hormones being all out of whack that day or something. He’s definitely fine to spend a couple hours slamming his body into Bitty’s. That’s… fine. It’s all fine.

It’s not fine.

Bitty makes it ten minutes in before he’s yelling at Jack to stop and yanking his helmet off, shaking his head. “Sorry, sorry, I just— I can’t. I _can’t_.” He looks thoroughly disgusted with himself. Jack pats him on the shoulder in an attempt to be comforting. 

“It’s okay,” Jack says, despite the fact that they both know it’s not. “Why don’t we just sit for a minute?” He skates over to the bench, shoving the door open and gesturing for Bitty to go first.

“I don’t see how this is a good use of time,” Bitty mumbles as he steps off the ice. 

“Well, we can’t make any progress when we know you’ll just panic every time,” Jack says as he follows after, trying to keep his voice neutral. Bitty sits down on the bench hard. He looks like he thinks Jack is giving up on him. “I mean,” Jack sits down next to Bitty, “this just isn’t getting anywhere.” He immediately feels stupid. That didn’t sound any better at all. 

“How am I going to get used to it if we don’t keep doing it?” Bitty asks, voice slightly accusing. 

Jack worries at his bottom lip. “Maybe… “ he starts, “maybe we’ve been doing it wrong?” 

“I think you know how to check someone,” Bitty says dryly. 

“Not _that_ part,” Jack says. “The whole thing. Your issue with checking is mental, right? So we need to fix whatever’s happening in your brain before we can fix what’s happening on the ice.” 

Bitty is silent for long enough that Jack starts to think that maybe he’s talking completely out of his ass. Maybe he needs to shut up, stop making presumptions, and go back to skating in silence. He’s about to take it back and say they should hit the ice when Bitty squares his shoulders and says, “Okay, yeah. You’re right. How do we do that?” 

“Um,” Jack says, struck dumb for a moment while his brain tries to backtrack. “Well, when was the first time you got checked?”

Bitty freezes up like he’s about to be checked. Jack automatically leans away, trying to give him space. 

“Or, uh, maybe I’m not the right person for you to be talking to about this? You should probably talk about it with a therapist or something. You don’t have to tell me anything.” 

Bitty half-laughs. “No, I think you, of all people, would understand.”

“Oh,” Jack says. He stops leaning away but stays conscious of not startling Bitty by brushing up against his side.

“Yeah. I was playing peewee football, because that’s what you do when your dad’s the coach, and I got tackled pretty hard. It’s kind of a blur in my head, but I mostly remember Coach telling me to get up, that it couldn’t have been that bad.”

“But it was?” 

Bitty shrugs. “I dunno. I didn’t get up. I wasn’t hurt all that bad, though, I probably could have. But I couldn’t play after that. I was always too afraid of getting tackled again, and eventually I got sick of Coach looking disappointed in me and quit to do figure skating instead. And then hockey, but my high school league was no contact, so I’ve never had to deal with it.” 

“You’re right,” Jack says, “I do understand.” If there’s anything in this world that Jack knows thoroughly, it would be— well, it would be hockey, and then it would be the feeling of disappointing one’s father. 

“So, any bright ideas?” Bitty asks. His tone is slightly joking, but he mostly just sounds defeated. Jack hates it. 

“There’s this association thing I did when I was in rehab,” Jack says carefully. “It’s, like, you start off really simple and work up to the big things, but I think we could just focus on what we want right away in this case.”

“Oh?” Bitty looks confused. 

“Sorry, yeah. So one of my big things is associating my dad with the pressure to be the best, right? That makes my goal separating out why that’s not a reasonable association. Like, there’s no set definition of what the best is. I’m not a carbon copy of my father. He wouldn’t love me less if I somehow failed.”

“You believe those things?” Bitty asks. His cheeks flush even pinker than they were already almost immediately. “I mean, sorry.”

Jack shrugs. “It’s a valid question. I don’t really have to believe them, because they’re facts. I know that intellectually even when I feel like they’re total fucking shit.” He shrugs again, suddenly feeling all too vulnerable. “Your thing is that you associate being checked with your dad being disappointed in you, right?”

Bitty nods. “Or, like, just with being a disappointment. Yeah.”

“So let’s come up with reasons why that’s not reasonable. And sorry, it’s going to feel ridiculous. At least, it did when I did it.” 

“You made it seem easy,” Bitty says. 

Jack snorts. “I’ve had a lot of practice.” 

Bitty looks like he’s thinking, so Jack lets them sit in silence for awhile before he nudges him gently with his elbow. “Come on, what’s one thing?” 

Bitty makes a face. “He’ll love me even if I’m a disappointment?” 

“Hey now, you can’t just copy mine and try to stick new words in it,” Jack says. “What if instead you’re not a disappointment at all?”

Bitty frowns. “But—”

“No,” Jack interrupts. “You’re physically capable of taking a hit and of getting up afterward. There’s no reason for him to be disappointed in you at all.” 

“What about last spring?”

“Anyone would’ve been fucked over by that hit,” Jack says. Bitty still doesn’t look convinced. “And if it helps, I don’t think you’re a disappointment.”

“You didn’t even want to be on the same line as me,” Bitty points out.

Jack winces and looks away. “That was before I realized how good you are. You’re working hard, and you’re gonna get past this, okay? I scored two-thirds of my points last season after you got put on my line. I need you with me.” 

Bitty doesn’t say anything right away, and when Jack looks back at him, he’s got a smile spreading across his face that makes Jack’s stomach flip. _Fuck_ , Jack’s been putting way too much emotion out there. It’s way past time to rein this back in.

“Well, um,” Jack says, clearing his throat, “do you maybe wanna get back on the ice?”

“Yeah,” Bitty says with a nod. “May as well.” 

-

Jack makes it through another checking clinic after that one, but he just _can’t_ stop thinking about Bitty smiling at him when they were sitting on the bench. That smile had done things to Jack. Things he doesn’t want to think about at all, ever. The unfortunate thing about Bitty getting better at taking a hit is that it’s that much more actual body contact, plus Bitty gets so excited that he’s improving, and that makes Jack’s heart do a weird fluttering thing. 

The point is: something must be done. Namely, Jack can’t spend one-on-one time with Bitty anymore, and that means he’s going to need to get someone else to help Bitty with checking. There’s only person he would trust with that, and he’s not entirely sure Shitty would be up for it. 

He dithers over it for awhile, anxious about asking Shitty. He keeps thinking about all the different ways Shitty could say no and wimps out every time he goes to ask. 

There’s a time limit on this, though, the clock counting down to the next time Jack is supposed to meet Bitty. They’re walking back to the Haus, Shitty rambling on and on about something someone who was wrong had said in class, when Jack finally gets up the nerve to do it. 

“Hey, Shitty,” he says, interrupting Shitty mid-sentence. “Will you do me a favour?” 

“What was that?” Shitty asks. It always takes him a second to come back down from a good rant.

“Will you do me a favour?” Jack repeats. 

Shitty frowns. “What d’you need?” 

Jack takes a deep breath. “Could you take over Bitty’s checking practice?” 

Shitty’s frown deepens. “Why?” 

Jack shrugs. “I’m just swamped right now, that’s all, and if I just had one less thing to worry about…” He trails off. Shitty is looking knowing now, and Shitty with a knowing expression is never a good thing.

“Okay, wait a minute, lemme translate from douchebag Canadian to English—’if I just had one less thing to worry about’ actually means ‘if I could just avoid spending one-on-one time with Bitty.’ Is this you admitting you like Bitty in a more-than-bros way and it’s freaking you out?” Shitty demands. 

“No!” Jack says immediately. “I mean, no. Why would that make me avoid him?”

“I don’t profess to understand young love,” Shitty says, flicking his hair off his forehead. “What happens if I say no?” 

Jack frowns. He doesn’t really know—that’s why it had been so nerve-wracking to ask Shitty to do it. Jack doesn’t trust anyone else with it, and he can’t leave Bitty hanging. He’s been slowly improving, and Jack can’t let that go to waste. He would have to keep practicing with Bitty himself, and then he’s back at square one, feelings and all. 

“Aha!” Shitty says triumphantly. “By your silence, I assume that you would keep doing it yourself. And come on, Jack, I know you’re not _that_ fuckin’ busy. There’s not much you prioritize higher than hockey.”

Sometimes Jack wishes Shitty didn’t know him quite so well. “Come on, Shits. Please?” 

Shitty shakes his head. “No. Unless you’re willing to ‘fess up to the real reason you want to stop, I’m not going to take over for you.”

“Shitty— “

“Nope.” They’re nearly to the Haus now, and Shitty starts walking faster. “You think about it, okay? Let me know.” He says the last over his shoulder before practically breaking into a jog. 

Jack watches him go and sighs heavily to himself. This is not what he’d been hoping for, but honestly, where Shitty is involved, he can’t even be surprised. Of course he’d do something like insist that Jack has to have feelings for Bitty. What if Jack was actually exceptionally busy? Shitty would look like a right idiot then. 

Except, well. Jack’s not that busy, is he. He does want to avoid Bitty because he’s having feelings for him. He hasn’t been trying too hard to determine exactly what they are, but—Shitty is probably right that Jack _likes_ Bitty. He’s not freaking out, though, it’s just. It would just be easier for everyone if Jack pretended this wasn’t happening until it went away. Damn Shitty for making him think about it. 

So now, Jack thinks, yanking the door of the Haus open and heading straight for his room, there are options. First, he keeps on working with Bitty and just ignores the feelings. That’s the most difficult option, because there’s no way to know how much worse this might get if Jack lets it. Second, he stops working with Bitty completely. That’s not even a real option, because there’s no way Jack would let Bitty down like that. Third, he tells Shitty he likes Bitty, and therefore gets to stop the feelings from going any further while still making sure Bitty gets the help he needs. 

The choice seems pretty obvious, especially when Jack considers that Shitty is, well, Shitty. He’s Jack’s best friend; it’s not like he’s about to go tell the whole world so everyone can laugh about Jack having a hopeless crush. He might laugh himself, but Jack can take it from him. 

Jack goes looking for Shitty, wanting to get this over with as soon as possible, but he finds him hanging out with Lardo. Shitty gives him a smug look over Lardo’s head as soon as he spots him, and Jack glares at him before retreating.

Clearly not fast enough, though, because he can hear Lardo asking Shitty, “What’s up with him?”

“He’s being an idiot, as per usual,” Shitty says. Jack resists the urge to stalk back in and defend his nonexistent honour. At least Shitty just said he was an idiot instead of actually giving Lardo the details. 

After dinner, Lardo heads out to work on an art project. She gives Jack a significant look as she’s leaving, which Jack chooses to ignore. 

This time Jack finds Shitty talking to Chowder, who is significantly less scary than Lardo, and besides, Jack is done waiting to do this. He grabs Shitty by the arm and drags him away without so much as an ‘excuse me.’ As he marches Shitty into his room, he vaguely hears Chowder muttering something like, “Oh, were you already talking to Jack and I didn’t realize?” and then louder, “I’m sorry!”

“You didn’t do anything, goalie child!” Shitty yells back, then turns to Jack. “You’re scaring a poor defenceless frog now. Is there nothing you won’t stoop to?” 

“He’s young, he’ll bounce back,” Jack says, closing the door behind them. He takes a deep breath. 

“Oooh, deep breathing happening.”

Jack glares. “Would it kill you to take this seriously?”

“Possibly,” Shitty says, but he does shut up and look attentive. 

Jack opens his mouth, fully intending to say something, but the words don’t happen. He snaps his mouth shut and frowns. After all the time he just had to wait, this shouldn’t be this hard. 

He must make a frustrated noise, because Shitty holds up placating hands. “Hey, bro, don’t stress. Take all the time you need.”

Jack nods. The silence stretches out between them.

“Okay,” Shitty says eventually. “How about we try it like this. Just answer this question: why do you want me to take over Bitty’s checking clinics?” 

“Because I… have a crush on him and I don’t want it to get worse,” Jack mumbles. 

Shitty nearly knocks Jack over with the force of the bear hug he gives him. Jack hugs him back awkwardly and presses his face into Shitty’s shoulder. “Fuckin’ proud of you and your gay-ass feelings,” Shitty says. 

“Uh… thanks?” 

“Thanks is right, asshole, ‘cause now I gotta get up at fucking 4 AM because I got you to admit to your damn feelings. You fucking owe me,” Shitty says. He’s nuzzling Jack’s neck at the same time, though, so it doesn’t come off half as harsh as it could. 

“I do,” Jack agrees. “Thanks.”

-

At first everything seems great. It’s a total relief for Jack to not have to deal with his crush bullshit anymore—he can just focus on school and hockey and go about his life without being plagued by indecent thoughts about Eric Bittle. It might be a slight problem that they live in the same house and play on the same hockey team, but Jack knows Bitty’s schedule well enough that avoiding him is fairly easy, and he can always play the _focus_ card when they’re at practice.

After a while, though, a bigger problem starts to present itself. Jack might be avoiding Bitty, but he does see him around, and lately Bitty’s been looking, well… sad. If he’s not moping around the Haus, he’s on his phone. Jack knows that Bitty tweets a lot, but the way his cell appears to be glued to his hand seems a bit over the top. 

Shitty convinces ( _forces_ might be a better word, but whatever) Jack to go out for froyo with him, Lardo, and Bitty, and Bitty doesn’t put his phone away once. Jack tries to cheer him up by chirping him about his Twitter obsession, but even when Jack steals his phone, Bitty just takes it back and goes back to staring morosely and tapping away. Jack finds this far too unsettling for his liking, but he has no idea what he could possibly do about it. 

The next day, Jack’s passing through the living room on his way to the library when Holster and Ransom pause their video game and glare at him the entire way through. Jack considers ignoring them, but at the last second he turns around. “What did I do?” he asks, genuinely curious.

Ransom shrugs and looks away. Holster sighs. “Don’t know, man, but Bitty’s sad. That’s your fault, like, eighty-five percent of the time.”

Jack has literally no idea what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything. He has places to be, anyway. 

He thinks about it the entire walk to the library, though. He can’t see why Bitty would be sad because of him, but he also hates not knowing the actual reason, especially now that he’s positive it’s not just him making Bitty’s strange behaviour up. He tries to put it out of his mind and focus on his paper, but he clearly fails, because as soon as he opens Google he’s typing in ‘twitter’ instead of anything remotely paper-related.

He stares at the search results for a second, then clicks the first result. ‘Welcome to Twitter’ boasts the homepage on top of an ever-cycling background of scenic views. Jack just wants to read Bitty’s tweets to maybe find out what’s been bugging him, but there isn’t a search bar anywhere on the page—only the forms to either sign in or sign up. 

Jack’s typing in his information before he can give himself a chance to really think about it. He makes an account under the username he always uses, ‘jzimmermann1’, and Twitter immediately suggests he follow Eric Bittle, which seems almost _too_ easy.

Jack doesn’t follow him, because Bitty will no doubt ask him about it then, but he does click to his profile and start scrolling through his tweets.

The overwhelming trend, Jack slowly realizes, is Jack himself. Bitty tweets about him a _lot_. Definitely more than everyone else, though Jack had gone through a good chunk of tweets twice before he let himself believe it. Then he’d looked at the time, remembered the paper he was supposed to be writing, and just started favouriting tweets to come back and analyze later. He’s pretty sure the tutorial he clicked through without really paying attention said clicking the star saved tweets for later. 

He finishes his paper and heads back to the Haus for food, and he doesn’t think about Twitter again until Shitty appears in his bedroom, already practically falling over himself laughing, and asks, “Did you make a _Twitter_?” 

“Uh,” Jack says, feeling caught out, “yes?” 

Shitty laughs even harder at that. Jack stares for a good minute before Shitty composes himself enough to ask, “To look at Bitty’s twitter, right? And then… did you favourite a bunch of his tweets?” 

“I, er, might’ve?” Jack says. “How do you know that?” 

“Oh, Jack. Jack, you fucking precious idiot. People can see what you favourite. _Bitty_ can see.” 

Shitty is laughing again. Jack feels like his heart has relocated to his throat and it’s only a matter of time before the rest of his insides join it on its vie for freedom. “Shitty,” he says, panicked. “Shitty, I fucked up.” 

Shitty keeps on laughing, but he seems far away now. In fact, everything seems far away and too much all at the same time, and oh _fuck_ , Jack can’t seem to make breathing work like it’s supposed to anymore. Shitty abruptly stops laughing and somehow is next to Jack, hands outstretched but hovering like he doesn’t want to touch. Jack grabs Shitty’s hands in attempt to ground himself. He hadn’t realized he was shaking until he had something to compare it to. 

“Whoa, bro, deep breaths,” Shitty says. “In and out.” He demonstrates, and Jack struggles to try and match him. 

It’s hard to concentrate on anything but how his heart is racing so fast that it feels like his chest could explode at any minute, though. “Fuck,” he chokes out. No matter how many times this happens, he still thinks his heart could very well give out. 

“Shhh,” Shitty says soothingly, “just focus on breathing.”

Jack feels like it’s been an hour of struggling to get air into his lungs and his heart rate back to normal, but it’s maybe been ten minutes. Thankfully, Shitty has always had a calming presence. Jack doesn’t know how he would have made it through freshman year if he hadn’t had Shitty to talk him through his panic attacks. 

He eventually succeeds in taking real deep breaths, his heart rate slowing back to normal. His hands are steady in Shitty’s, but he still feels vaguely nauseous like he always does after a panic attack. “You cool?” Shitty asks cautiously.

“I just had a panic attack over fucking Twitter,” Jack mutters, disbelieving. 

Shitty snorts and lets him go. “Yeah, well.” He shrugs and bumps Jack’s shoulder gently with his. “You wanna talk about it?” 

Jack suddenly feels the need to somehow prove that his freaking out was warranted, even though that’s totally irrational. “Do you want to see the tweets?” he asks anyway. 

“Sure,” Shitty agrees. Jack tugs his laptop over to them and opens Twitter. He shoves the laptop at Shitty, who looks at it, then at Jack. “This is your blank-ass feed, bro.”

Jack scowls. “Well, I starred them. They should be there _somewhere_.” 

Shitty looks exasperated. “Bro,” he mutters. He’s silent for a moment, staring intently at the screen, and then he says, “Aha! Found them.” He goes back to staring, now scrolling as well. Jack stares at him staring. “Dude,” Shitty says. “Fuck, man.” He stares and scrolls some more. He shakes his head, disbelieving, then looks up at Jack. He’s grinning. Jack has no fucking clue what would be possessing him to do that. “You know what this means, right?!”

“Uh,” Jack says. He feels like it means that he can never show his face again, because Bitty _knows_ he favourited those tweets, but Shitty looks too excited for that. “No?” 

“ _Dude_ ,” Shitty says. “He tweets about you _all the fucking time_. Sometimes he does it, then minutes later says things like ‘Crushes are stressful.’ What does that seem like to you?” 

Shitty is looking expectantly at him. Jack’s not stupid, he can see what the connection Shitty is drawing is, but the idea that Bitty could possibly have a crush on _him_ just seems absurd. “I don’t think so, man,” Jack says. “I see what you’re saying, but no.”

“Why not, bro?” Shitty asks. 

“I’m sure we’re just overthinking it,” Jack insists. “He’s probably talking about that dude he went to winter screw with last year when he talks about crushes. And we’re friends, we hang out, so of course he tweets about me. His Twitter followers seem to like laughing at me, that probably helps him get viewers for his video thing, right? That’ll be why.”

Shitty shakes his head incredulously. “How the fuck is what you just said _not_ overthinking it, but assuming he likes you is? Don’t cut yourself on Occam’s razor, bro.” 

Jack shrugs. 

“You know what,” Shitty says when Jack refuses to say anything. “Fine. Feel free to keep on heading up the river of denial, but I’m officially not helping you paddle, man. I thought getting you to say your feelings out loud would knock some sense into you, but clearly you’re even more stubborn than I thought. If you get over yourself and want my help finding out what Bitty’s favourite flower is or whatever, then I’m so there. But dude, I love you, and as your best friend I’m obligated to tell you that you’re being fucking ridiculous as shit right now.” 

“Thanks a bunch, Shitty,” Jack says. “That’s very helpful of you.”

“But it _is_ , bro,” Shitty says, getting to his feet. “You’ll see. In time.” He claps Jack on the shoulder and sweeps out of the room, leaving Jack alone with his thoughts and the harsh glare of his Twitter page, still open to his favourites.

He slams his laptop shut and shoves it onto his desk before crawling into bed, still fully dressed, and pulling the comforter over his head. 

Tomorrow is a new day, he tells himself. Everything will be better tomorrow. 

-

 _Tomorrow is a new fucking day, all right,_ Jack thinks. _Full of the same fucking shit._

He puts the orange juice carton on the counter and slams the fridge door. He gets a glass out of the cupboard and slams that door as well. He pours the juice so aggressively that it gets all over the counter, of fucking course. He glares at it like it personally offends him the entire time he’s wiping it up. 

So he might be being a bit of drama queen. He’s been doing it all day; he can’t seem to turn it off. He thinks he probably yelled at every member of the team at least once during morning practice, some of them twice, and no one would even come near him during team breakfast. Then his classes had been boring and awful, and Jack had barely listened to a word any of his professors said. 

He’s going to regret all of this later. He regrets it now, honestly, but he’s still running on the fumes of his terrible, terrible mood, so it hasn’t fully hit him yet. 

“Hey!” Bitty’s voice comes from behind Jack. “I thought I heard someone banging around in here.” 

Jack’s grip on the dishcloth he’d been wiping juice up with tightens. He resists the urge to throw it into the sink and gently places it there instead. He should have known better than to venture into the kitchen if he didn’t want to run into Bitty. 

“Bittle,” he says, turning around. “Don’t worry, I was just leaving.” 

“Oh! No, you don’t have to—um.” Bitty fidgets with the sleeves of his hoodie. “I wanted to talk to you, actually. I mean, nothing important, I just noticed you got Twitter?”

Great. This is just great. Bitty is standing there looking slightly nervous and very cute with his ruffled hair and his oversized sweater, which is what got Jack into this fucking mess in the first place, and he wants to talk about _Twitter_. Jack never wants to hear about Twitter ever again. 

He shrugs. “Yeah. Couldn’t figure it out, though, so.” 

“Oh, well, I could help you if—”

“No,” Jack says sharply, “thanks. I’m good. Don’t really need to be wasting my time on Twitter.” 

Bitty’s face falls. Jack decides he needs to remove himself from this situation posthaste so that he doesn’t make this worse than it already is. 

“I’ve got homework,” he says, booking it to his room at a pace that hopefully doesn’t actually look like he’s running away. (He’s well aware that it probably does.)

He’s sitting, forehead resting on his desk, when he realizes he left his fucking orange juice in the kitchen. 

Well then. Fuck if he’s going to get it now. He’ll just have to be thirsty. What-fucking-ever.

-

Jack likes hanging out with Lardo because she, unlike most of the guys on the team, understands the value of a nice, companionable silence. She’s great to talk to as well, but she hardly ever pushes you to it. Jack appreciates her so much, especially when he’s in a mood. 

He’s been in a mood for so long at this point that he actually wouldn’t be surprised if Lardo made him talk about it, but they’ve been sitting on this couch in a study lounge for hours now, and she hasn’t done anything but flip the pages of her book and occasionally pull out her phone. 

Jack finishes a chapter of his textbook and closes it. “Dining hall?” he asks, shoving the book into his backpack. Lardo nods and packs up her stuff. 

It’s after most classes are over and before the supper rush, so the dining hall isn’t terribly crowded, and it doesn’t take them long to grab food and find an empty table to sit at. 

“You should ask Bitty to winter screw,” Lardo says as she takes the lid off her takeout bowl of soup. 

Jack freezes, sandwich halfway to his mouth. Hours of silence, and this is what Lardo breaks it for? Jack decides that he will not be participating in this conversation. He takes a bite of his sandwich and chews it slowly, staring at Lardo. 

Lardo looks unperturbed as she breaks crackers into her soup and pushes them around with her spoon. She doesn’t say anything else, either, and Jack thinks she’s not going to push the issue. 

“It’s just,” Lardo says when they’re pretty much done eating, “what if he goes with someone else?” 

Jack’s hand is suddenly wet, and he doesn’t fully grasp why until he looks down and realizes that he’s crushed his not quite empty Coke can in his fist. 

Lardo looks from the crushed can to his face. “Uh huh,” she says.

-

As absurd as Jack thinks it is that Shitty could be right about Bitty having a crush on Jack, it’s the kind of thing that just sort of… niggles in the back of his mind while Jack does his absolute best to push it away. He bangs on Bitty’s door to get him up for practice every day, but he keeps his distance when they’re there. He catches Bitty looking at him when they’re sitting on the bench and thinks _maybe_ , but then he looks back and Bitty isn’t looking anymore and _no_. They sit together in their lecture, and Jack lets Bitty doodle in the margins of Jack’s notes, but he won’t let him tweet when they have a paper due. He thinks Bitty should be angrier with him, but he relents his phone with the barest hint of a smile. Jack’s gut flips. He wonders if he ever makes Bitty feel like that. He wonders if anyone else does, and then he doesn’t think about that lest he harm any more innocent pop cans. 

It’s typical, honestly. First Shitty gets it in his head that Bitty could like him, then Lardo suggests Jack ask him to winter screw. Standard tag teaming, and the worst part is that it’s _working_. The even worse part is that it wouldn’t be working if there weren’t at least something to what they’re saying. 

And, Jack thinks one late night, staring up at the ceiling in the dark, if there’s even a shred of a chance of this working out, Jack can’t let it pass by. He’s missed too many chances for great things because he fucked up. 

He has to ask Bitty to winter screw. 

It’s a risk, he knows that. But the worst outcome is, what, Bitty says no and starts avoiding _him_ instead of the other way around? At least then Jack would know and the blasted niggling would stop, not to mention he’d be able to tell Shitty and Lardo where to shove it. And at best… well.

He has to do it.

-

Deciding to do something is a fuckload easier than actually doing it. 

Jack is sitting at the kitchen table. Across from him, Dex and Nursey are arguing over Chowder’s head while Chowder shrinks down in his chair as he tries to get them to stop. Jack isn’t sure what they’re on about this time, mostly because he hasn’t paid attention to anything other than what Bitty is doing since he sat down.

“Hey,” Jack says when Bitty turns on the mixer, leaning toward the frogs. 

Dex and Nursey immediately stop talking, and Chowder stares at Jack, eyes wide. “Hey, Jack, hi, what’s up? Have you been there long? Didn’t see you, I would—”

“I haven’t been here long,” Jack interrupts. He knows how long Chowder can ramble if you let him. “I was just wondering” —he glances up to make sure Bitty is still concentrating on his mixture— “if you three could do something for me?” 

“Sure!” Chowder agrees.

“Depends,” Nursey says.

Dex looks wary. “What is it?” 

Jack— probably should have thought harder about this. He says the first thing that comes to mind. “I need you to get me something from the history department.”

“The history department?” Dex asks. 

Chowder is nodding so fast that Jack is afraid his head might pop right off. “Yeah, sure, can do. That’s, like, on the south quad, right? I can check—”

“Chill, Chowder,” Nursey says. “What are we getting?” 

“My— paper. I wrote a paper that I’m supposed to pick up. Should be somewhere on the second floor, can’t remember the room number it’s across from exactly.”

“I should write this down,” Chowder says. 

“I’ve got it, Chow,” Dex says. “History department. Paper. Second floor. We’re good.”

“Is this an initiation thing?” Nursey asks. “Because—”

Jack applies what he hopes is his best scary do-what-I-say face, and Dex stands and interrupts Nursey. “Let’s go, man.” 

“Frogs have to pay their dues,” Chowder says, standing as well. Nursey sighs and follows them.

“Thank you,” Jack says, though he’s not sure any of them heard him over their muttering to each other on the way out of the kitchen. He tries not to feel too bad about not specifying which building he’d meant. Or that the paper is entirely fictional. 

Bitty is sifting flour now, seemingly oblivious to everything happening around him. Jack steels himself, thinks _Hey Bitty, do you want to go to winter screw with me?_ twice in a row without fucking it up, opens his mouth, and— 

Bitty dumps all his sifted flour into a bowl, flips the mixer on, and starts gradually adding flour to the mixer bowl, and Jack doesn’t say anything at all. He snaps his mouth shut and stares. 

Bitty seems like he’s in such a good mood today; Jack can even hear him humming to himself when he turns the mixer off every so often. What if Jack asking him to winter screw ruins that? 

He’s got to do it anyway. A good mood will mean the brush off will be kind and not snappish, at least. He gears himself up again, only for Bitty to turn around at that precious moment.

“Jack! I didn’t see you come in.”

Jack shrugs.

Bitty sets the mixer bowl on the table and turns back to dig a cutting board out of a cupboard. “Weren’t the frogs here?” Bitty asks as he sits down with it and a plastic box that Jack knows is full of cookie cutters. “I think they offered to help me cut out the cookies.”

“They, uh. Had to go. Do something,” Jack says. 

“Oh,” Bitty says, frowning. “Well, uh. You wanna help, then?” 

Jack stares for a moment, caught out, then nods. 

“Great! I’ll get you a cutting board.”

Jack spends the rest of the afternoon cutting cookie dough into hearts, blushing when he makes eye contact with Bitty across the table, and wishing he could find his nerve again. 

-

Jack gets it in his head that the morning is the optimal time to ask Bitty based on such logic as: practice immediately after will offer sufficient distraction, Jack will be more confident having just woken up, and Bitty can have the entire day to think about it if need be. (Jack assumes he won’t need it because he’s just going to say no, but whatever.)

He keeps standing at Bitty’s door after he’s opened it instead of walking away like he usually does. Bitty blinks up at him, eyes crusted with sleep. “G’morning,” he says.

“Morning,” Jack says. He’s surprised he even gets that out. The sight of early-morning Bitty has rendered his brain to mere static and adjectives like _soft_ and _adorable._

“Did you… need something?” Bitty asks, wrinkling his forehead in confusion. “‘Cause I’m up, I promise, and you usually… “

He trails off, looking at Jack in expectation. Jack tries desperately to remember what it was he was going to say. “I, er.” He stares at Bitty. “Make sure you, uh, eat some eggs for breakfast later.”

Bitty stares back. “Um. Okay. I’ll… do that?” 

“Good,” Jack says seriously, nodding. He hits Bitty in the shoulder and ducks back into his own room, shutting the door behind him. He leans against the wall and takes deep breaths.

Morning was not the optimal time.

It’s possible there may _never_ be an optimal time.

-

“Hey, bro,” Ransom says. Jack looks up from the textbook he’d been reading at the kitchen table. “You waiting for Bitty?”

Jack frowns and puts down his half-eaten apple on his plate. “No, why would I be?” he asks, even though he had kinda had it in his head that if he sat here long enough, Bitty would appear.

Ransom shrugs, busying himself taking what seems like everything out of the fridge. Jack watches as he starts to assemble a sandwich. “Got this assignment due tomorrow,” Ransom says, even though Jack didn’t ask for, or really need, an explanation. “Gonna need mad fuel to get through it.”

“Of course,” Jack agrees. 

“So.” Ransom turns around and looks at Jack. “Bitty says you’ve been acting weird?” 

“Uh,” Jack says. He can’t very well refute that. “Weird how?” 

Ransom shrugs. “He didn’t really go into that much detail, man. He seemed upset, though, and dude, I thought we talked about this.”

“I’m not doing it on purpose,” Jack says, which is true enough. 

“Sure,” Ransom says, “but you’re doing _something_. Listen, I’m gonna get real with you because I think you need it. We’ve all been watching you two dance circles around each other, and lately you’ve been dancing so close that Bitty _noticed_ that something’s up. So whatever it is you wanna tell him or whatever, now might be a good time to end that dance at center ice and do it.” 

Jack blinks. “That’s a mixed metaphor.”

“Fuck you. Ice dancing, asshole,” Ransom says, turning and slapping a piece of bread on top of his pile of who-even-knows-what. He starts putting everything he’d taken out of the fridge back. 

“What if I make everything worse?” Jack finds himself asking. 

Ransom closes the fridge and picks up his plate. “I doubt you could, man.” 

-

Bitty appears in Jack’s doorway a few days later, looking nervous. Jack sees him out of the corner of his eye a moment before he says, “Jack?”

Jack turns around in his desk chair. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Well, um, the basement lights seem to have burnt out, and I was down there looking for the popsicle sticks I’m pretty sure I stashed somewhere, but I can’t find them, and honestly it’s a bit freaky? Because it gets dark outside so early these days, so it’s dark down there, and even with a flashlight there are still _corners_ , you know? And you’re the only one home right now, so I was wondering if you’d come help me look? I swear there are popsicle sticks _somewhere_ , honestly, I put them—”

“Bitty,” Jack says. “Sure, I’ll come help look.”

“Oh,” Bitty says. Jack thinks he might be a bit surprised, which is upsetting. Did he really think Jack would say _no_? “Okay. Do you happen to have a flashlight?”

Jack does, so he retrieves it and follows Bitty down the stairs. “What do you need popsicle sticks for, anyways? It’s a bit cold for popsicles, eh?” 

Bitty laughs. “I’m making a table centrepiece for Thanksgiving dinner,” he says. “I found this really cool one on Pinterest.” 

“Ah,” Jack says. He has only the vaguest idea as to what Pinterest even is. 

Bitty opens the door to the basement and starts down the stairs, Jack following after. The door swings closed behind them, clicking shut, and they’re in complete darkness for a second before Bitty turns on his flashlight. Jack flips his on as well. 

“Wow, it really is dark as fuck,” Jack says. “Hey, do you think those sorority girl ghosts Ransom mentions sometimes are hiding down here?” 

“I don’t think so,” Bitty says. “Don’t they live in the attic? And even if they were, I don’t think they’re vengeful ghosts.” 

Jack turns his flashlight on his face. “I vant to suck your blood!” he says in a terrible accent, widening his eyes and stumbling toward Bitty. 

Bitty sounds unimpressed. “Ghosts don’t suck blood.” 

Jack shines his flashlight at Bitty instead. There’s definitely a smile tugging at Bitty’s lips. “Well, I don’t know what ghosts do, man.” 

“Just help me look for popsicle sticks,” Bitty says. 

“Fine,” Jack says. They look in silence for awhile. Jack can’t believe the amount of random shit they throw in the basement. “Are you sure you put them here?” he asks eventually.

“Yeah,” Bitty says from the other side of the basement. “But they’re not where I thought.”

“They don’t appear to be anywhere,” Jack says. “Hate to say this, dude, but maybe someone took them?” 

Bitty sighs, frustrated. “What would someone need popsicle sticks for?” 

Jack chooses not to answer that. “Do you want to just go buy some? I’ll come with you if you want.” 

“I guess,” Bitty says. 

“All right, that’s settled then.” Jack heads back up the stairs, carefully shining his flashlight at the steps so that he doesn’t fall, and goes to open the door. 

Except the doorknob comes off in his hand, and the door doesn’t move. Jack stares for a second, then tries to shove the door open. It doesn’t budge. “Uh,” he says.

“Jack?” Bitty asks. 

“The door broke,” Jack says. 

“The door _what_?” 

“Well, the doorknob came off,” Jack says, turning around on the step to show Bitty. “And I can’t seem to force it open.” 

Bitty stares at the doorknob in Jack’s hand. “You can’t force it open? The Haus is practically falling down, you’d think the door would just give.”

Jack tries again, putting his entire body weight into it. The door, ever stubborn, doesn’t move. Of course. “We’re stuck,” he says. The implications of being stuck in the basement with Bitty are slowly creeping up on him.

Bitty pats the pockets of his jeans, then his hoodie, then looks up at Jack with wide eyes. “I think I left my phone in the kitchen.”

“Mine’s in my room,” Jack says. 

Bitty chews his bottom lip in thought, and Jack looks away. “We could try banging?” Bitty suggests. “At least I know you’re good at that.”

Jack can’t help it, he starts laughing at Bitty’s unintentional innuendo. 

“What— oh, _heavens_ , I meant banging on the _door_ , obviously!” Bitty’s face is bright red, which really only makes it funnier. He hits Jack in the arm when he laughs even harder. “Get a hold of yourself, man! Someone’s bound to hear us if we make enough noise.”

“Except that no one’s home,” Jack reminds him. Bitty’s face falls, and Jack stops laughing completely. “We could try a window?” He shines his flashlight around the room until he gets to one of the tiny basement windows and winces. “Never mind, not even you could get through that.”

“Hey,” Bitty says mildly. He sighs and heads back down the stairs, stopping near the bottom and sitting down on a step. “I guess we’re stuck until someone gets home.” 

“Yeah,” Jack agrees. He sets the doorknob down; there’s really no point in holding it. He hesitates for a moment, then walks down and sits next to Bitty. He tries to think of something to say, and it occurs to him that if there were ever a good time to ask Bitty to winter screw, this would be it. There’s no way for Jack to run away even if he wanted to. 

There’s also no way Jack is ever going to do it. He can feel his heartbeat quicken with anxiety just at the thought of it, and it wouldn’t exactly be great to have a panic attack in the basement with only Bitty here. 

He might have one anyway. He’s pretty sure this is an awkward silence they’re sitting in right now. He certainly feels awkward about it. He has no idea what Bitty is thinking. 

They sit there for what seems like ages, starting at every little noise and straining to hear if it’s someone coming home. Bitty keeps sweeping his flashlight around the room every so often like something might jump out of the dark. 

“So, um,” Jack says when he can’t take the silence anymore. “How’s checking practice going? Shitty hasn’t said anything to me about it in awhile.”

Bitty jerks his head up from where he was studying his feet and stares at Jack. Jack is about to apologize, even though he doesn’t know what he said wrong, when Bitty says, “I can’t take this anymore.” 

“What?” Jack asks, alarmed. Bitty ignores him. 

“I can’t _take_ it,” Bitty repeats. “This elephant in the room is way too much, so just listen, okay?”

Jack nods, mute, not that Bitty waits for a response.

“I like you, all right?” Bitty says, and Jack’s heart skips a beat. “I have a crush on you, and I know it’s stupid, and I know it’s never going to go anywhere, but I can’t help my feelings. I’m sorry if that freaks you out or whatever. I’m sorry that you read my tweets and then you started avoiding me, and even worse, hanging out with me like everything was normal except it _wasn’t_ , because you knew and you were acting weird, and I don’t know what you want me to do, Jack, because I didn’t ask for any of this. I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary.” He pauses, breathing hard, and then adds, “So there it is. Best to get it all out there. The sooner you break my heart, the sooner I can get over it and we can get back to normal, right? Don’t worry, I can take it.” 

Jack’s throat feels all closed up, like he maybe might cry or something, and he doesn’t know what to say. Bitty likes him. Shitty is going to have a field day about this. 

“Jack?” Bitty says. His voice is shaking slightly now, and he’s not looking at Jack. He’s gripping his flashlight so tight that his knuckles are white. “Will you please say something?” 

Jack reaches out and touches Bitty’s arm cautiously. Bitty looks up. “What if I don’t want to break your heart?”

There’s a long pause before Bitty says, “You don’t?” 

Jack shakes his head. “I wouldn’t.”

“Okay…” Bitty says slowly. “So what you’re saying is…?”

Jack takes a deep breath and looks away, into the darkness. “I’ve been acting weird because I was trying to ask you to winter screw, but I couldn’t work up the nerve,” he says. “And before that I was trying to keep my distance so that maybe my feelings for you would go away. I thought there was no way you’d ever like me.”

Bitty laughs, of all things, short and surprised and beautiful. “You have feelings for me?”

“Yeah,” Jack says. “ _Yeah_ , I do. I like you, Bitty, so much. It’s kind of scary.”

“Well, that works,” Bitty says, “because I’m terrified.” 

“Good thing we have a light,” Jack says with a smile, shining his flashlight on Bitty. Bitty smiles back, and he’s so blinding that Jack thinks he would be the brightest thing in the room even if they weren’t sitting in the dark. 

“Two, even,” Bitty agrees, turning his flashlight on Jack. He reaches his free hand out, offering it to Jack, and Jack takes it, twining their fingers together. Bitty lets out a shaky breath. “Wow.”

“Yeah,” Jack agrees. He thinks that he could probably do anything when he’s holding Bitty’s hand. He could burn down the whole damn world. “Hey Bitty, do you want to go to winter screw with me?” 

“I’d love to,” Bitty says, easy as that. “Hey Jack?”

“Mmm?” 

“Do you want to kiss me?” 

“Sure,” Jack says without thinking, then winces. That was rather blasé.

Bitty grins, though. “Good, because I really want to kiss you right now.” 

“Oh,” Jack says. It feels like they almost fall into each other, slowly closing the space between them until there isn’t any. Jack lets go of Bitty’s hand so that he can fist his hand in Bitty’s hoodie and tug him closer, and then they’re kissing, awkward at first because Bitty is still smiling and that makes Jack smile, but they get the hang of it. Jack knocks his flashlight against the stair railing behind Bitty and has to stop kissing Bitty to catch it, cursing, and when he tries to go back to the kissing, Bitty is looking up at the door.

“Did you hear that?” Bitty asks.

“Me being an idiot?”

“No,” Bitty says. “It sounded like someone coming in the front door.”

Jack had honestly momentarily forgotten all about the fact that they were trapped in the basement and not just in their own little world by choice. He’d probably be content to stay down here forever. Or at least until they got hungry.

Bitty looks back at Jack. “Is it bad if I don’t really want to leave?” 

Jack kisses him for that.

“Well, I could get used to that,” Bitty says eventually. “We should probably…“ He gestures at the door. 

“…get to that banging thing you were on about?” Jack says just to see Bitty’s cheeks flush red. 

“You shut up, Jack Zimmermann,” Bitty says. 

“Yeah, all right,” Jack says. “We’ve got popsicle sticks to buy, after all.”

“Damn right we do,” Bitty agrees.


End file.
